Wikipedia

In late July, Wikipedia announced that it would accept donations in bitcoin. In its first week of accepting bitcoin, Wikipedia racked up $140,000 in new funds, according to Coinbase, the service that powers its cryptocurrency influx. CoinDesk, a publication that tracks bitcoin and other alternative, digital currencies heralds the news as suggesting “the staying power of digital… Read More

Wikipedia, the decentralized community-powered encyclopedia, is now accepting donations in bitcoin, the decentralized community-powered cryptocurrency. The Wikimedia Foundation partnered with Coinbase to process the donations. Also new today, Coinbase will waive processing fees for all registered non-profits.
Today’s news shouldn’t come as a surprise. Back in March, Wikipedia… Read More

The good folks at the Wikimedia Foundation have been toying with the concept of mobile editing for some time now, attempting to tap into the 15-percent of its user base who read the open encyclopedia on mobile devices. It’s a growing segment of the population that includes potential readers in developing nations where handsets are far more prevalent than desktops. Of course, mobile editing has been a hard puzzle to crack, given the complexity of tools and the limitations of screen real estate on such devices, but Wikimedia’s been toiling away with beta versions for a while, after mastering photo uploading. Now it’s finally ready to open it up to all users with an account. For more info on getting started, peep the source link below.

The office is silent when our small film crew arrives at Wikimedia’s San Francisco headquarters. There’s none of the newsroom buzz one might associate with the operators of one of the world’s largest sites. Hell, the day I started at AOL, there was a bulldog skateboarding through the halls. There are a few subtle, telltale internet startup signs, like several bottles of liquor hastily packed in a filing box on the lower floor, sitting next to a small CD mixer. While it’s Friday afternoon, the company’s resident mixologist is out at the moment. The celebration will have to wait.

Just to the right of the party box is Song Yingxing, a conference room named for the Chinese encyclopedist, which has more recently adopted the “Mushroom Kingdom” name, owing to a slew of gaming consoles and peripherals housed inside. It won’t stay that way for long, according to Matthew Roth, the foundation’s global communications manager, who’s kindly devoted much of his afternoon to chaperoning us around the two floors. “No one really plays the games,” he says. The hammock, too, is empty for our visit. It would be easy enough to chalk up such good behavior to the presence of a visiting media outlet, but sometimes the simplest answer is the best: Friday afternoon or not, the folks seated at these desks are hard at work.

In the lower of two levels occupied by the foundation, developers have their heads down, rushing to get the soon-to-be-released in-house Wikipedia app out the door. The project has only been on the drawing board since January, and the foundation only hired its first dedicated iOS developer in the past month. The move is the next step in expanding the site’s already massive reach to corners of the world that it hasn’t quite penetrated, an attempt to help the organization approach its utopian vision of free information for all. On its face, it’s a simple photo uploader — but it’s more than that, really. It’s a chance to open up Wikipedia editing to an even larger global audience. It’s as good a reason as any to be inside on a beautiful mid-April Friday afternoon in Northern California.

Wikipedia has long been pushing for access to its communal knowledge among those who can’t afford the latest technology, going so far as to strike deals with carriers to deliver free mobile web viewing. It’s set to expand that reach to those for whom any advanced cellphone is out of the question. In part through the help of a Knight News Challenge grant and South Africa’s Praekelt Foundation, the non-profit’s Wikipedia Zero effort will offer its content through SMS and USSD messages in the next few months. Curious users will just have to send a text message to get an article in response, with no web required at all. It’s a big step forward for democratizing online information for those who may not even have access to a smartphone, although we’re curious as to how it will handle large articles; we can only imagine the volume of messages when trying to look up the known universe.

Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, CyanogenMod gained a new logo, Google acquired a mobile payments company and we learned that the HTC EVO 4G LTE for Sprint will include an embedded SIM card. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of April 2nd, 2012.

The good news is that Wikipedia has finally switched up that image of Jimmy Wales begging for money on its homepage. The bad news is that they’ve replaced it with another unfortunately left-aligned image of some random guy (Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris to be precise) who, according to my email inbox, looks like everything from Jesus, to Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger to a member of the Hell’s Angels.

Here is a particularly hilarious conversation I had about it with somebody on IM.

Person: damn some idiot biker is screaming at me to give me money today http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChakraPerson: refresh the pagePerson: he should ride in on a harleyPerson: and then jack me with a switchbladeMe: SnortPerson: cut my face if i don’t drop some funds on wikipediaMe: Should I do another post?Person: I’ve heard JesusMe: seems necessaryPerson: Is wikipedia run by a biker gang?Person: Will they slit your tires if you don’t donate?Person: i like how he has two different picsPerson: there’s the soft outside guy silently judging you and the intimidating dude who will jack your ass

“I donated to get Brandon Harris’ picture off the top. I didn’t mind Jimmy Wales’ piercing gaze but Brandon was just disturbing,” notes interaction designer Xianhang Zhang on Quora. Until Wikipedia finally figures it out, Jimmy Wales himself offers an alternative to donating (and complaining) for those of you still creeped out,”You can also just click the little ‘x’.”

To donate money to Wikipedia, WHICH YOU TOTALLY SHOULD IN CASE IT’S NOT CLEAR, follow this link.